Young minority men are often portrayed in popular media as victims of poverty and discrimination. A Dream Denied delves deeper, investigating the social and cultural implications of the "American dream" narrative for young minority men in the juvenile justice systems in Boston and Chicago. This book connects young male offenders' cycles of desistance and recidivism with normative assumptions about success and failure in American society, exposing a tragic disconnect between structural reality and juvenile justice policy. This book challenges us to reconsider how American society relates to its most vulnerable members, how it responds to their personal failures, and how it promises them a better future.

School shootings scare everyone, even those not immediately affected. They make national and international news. They make parents afraid to send their children off to school. But they also lead to generalizations about those who perpetrate them. Most assumptions about the perpetrators are wrong and many of the warning signs are missed until it's too late. Here, Peter Langman takes a look at 48 national and international cases of school shootings in order to dispel the myths, explore the motives, and expose the realities of preventing school shootings from happening in the future, including identifying at risk individuals and helping them to seek help before it's too late.

School Crime and Juvenile Justice, Second Edition, examines the nature, extent, and causes of school crime and disruptive behavior, offering a comprehensive overview of this significant and growing problem. Drawing on numerous sources and on studies conducted over the past ten years, the second edition reviews the most up-to-date theories on the relationship between school crime and crime in the community, the role of parents and peers, and schools' organization and policies. Lawrence discusses current research findings, laws and school policies, prevention strategies, and alternative schools and special education programs for at-risk and delinquent students. Extensively revised and updated, this edition includes two new chapters: Chapter 6 examines the school environment and how school size, structure, and related factors affect school crime and safety, while Chapter 7 discusses recent research on identifying which students may be at risk of committing school violence. Chapters on the causes of juvenile delinquency and the role of police, courts, and corrections in the administration of juvenile justice have been expanded and updated to reflect the latest available research and resources.
Ideal for criminal justice courses and an indispensable resource for scholars and school administrators, School Crime and Juvenile Justice, Second Edition, takes a closer look at the problem of crime and violence in and around schools. It offers a clear understanding of how people can work together to create safer schools and how educators and juvenile justice officials can develop cooperative delinquency prevention programs.

One of the Guys: Girls, Gangs, and Gender examines the causes, nature, and meaning of female gang involvement. Miller situates the study of female gang membership in the context of current directions in feminist scholarship and research on both gangs and female criminal offenders. Unique in its approach, this book is a comparative study that examines both gang members and nongang members to provide an accurate picture of the nature of gang life. The author draws on interviews from two contrasting cities, St. Louis, Missouri and Columbus, Ohio. While both cities have relatively new gang histories, their socioeconomic conditions are notably different. The book opens with a foreword written by Malcolm W. Klein, a leading authority on youth gangs. Miller examines how and why girls join gangs; the nature of girls' involvement in gangs; how gang involvement shapes girls' participation in delinquency and their risk of victimization; and the ways in which gender affects their gang experience. Miller concludes by drawing out implications for gender and crime and the study of female lawbreaking. Written in a lively and personal style, One of the Guys: Girls, Gangs, and Gender includes rich, extensive interviews offering fascinating excerpts from the girls themselves. Miller examines these dialogues in order to explore gender identities within gangs. One of the Guys: Girls, Gangs, and Gender is an ideal text for courses which focus on juvenile delinquency, women and crime, gang activity, and female lawbreaking.

Generally naive about their world, children are thought to be nearly incapable of serious wrongdoing and are rarely suspects in violent crimes. Yet, from the 1960s to the mid-90s, the U.S. saw several waves of juvenile murders that caused widespread public concern. The phenomenon created longstanding debates about the sources or causes of a child killer's mindset. Some blame external triggers like video games, rock music or pornography, while others argue the causes are deeper issues, such as an underdeveloped brain experiencing abuse and neglect. The quest to uncover the causes of these crimes is ongoing, and how the American justice system should handle these young killers remains a controversy. This book assesses ten murder cases in modern American criminal history, examining the minds of the children who perpetrated them. Chapters compile decades of research on the psychology of child murderers in hopes of creating a more coherent understanding of why kids kill.

The juvenile justice system is a multifaceted entity that continually changes under the influence of decisions, policies, and laws. Juvenile Justice: A Social, Historical, and Legal Perspective, Fifth Edition is the most comprehensive reference on the juvenile justice system available. Author, Preston Elrod presents a broad range of topics, including the administration of juvenile justice, within a societal and historical context so readers gain a firm knowledge of the rationales to practice and challenges.

This textbook considers the full breadth of the criminal justice system, going beyond prisons to cover other punishments such as out-of-court disposals and community penalties, as well as issues around rehabilitation and reintegration. It offers a holistic and contemporary account of the penal system in England and Wales. Helping students to understanding the ever-changing environment of penal policy and practice, this book not only provides a strong foundation in penal theory but also has a strong focus on actual practice. Author Karen Harrison draws on a number of interviews with people who work within or for agencies associated with the penal system, as well as accounts of prison visits that build a picture of current prison life. Packed with helpful features, Penology includes Spotlight profiles of the penal system in countries across the globe. The text also covers a range of specific offenders, examining not just white adult men but women offenders, children and ethnic minorities. This is essential reading for students in England and Wales studying penology, punishment and prisons at undergraduate or postgraduate level. It's also offers important insights for students of criminology, criminal justice, law and social science.

Letters to a Lifer provides a rare insight into life without parole (LWOP) for juveniles in the USA. A true story from Pennsylvania, it is a compelling tale of faith and redemption. Cindy Sanford tells how a chance correspondence with Ken, a prisoner artist, began to change her entrenched ideas about offenders. Her book now adds voice to the work of the USA's National Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth and will also be of interest to students of restorative justice. In 1999, America's Most Wanted broadcast details of a notorious crime. Twelve years later Cindy was introduced to Ken, one of the two boys convicted, through his remarkable wildlife art. By then a young man, Ken had spent half his life in prison. Initially wary, Cindy was surprised to find him humble, polite and deeply grateful for her interest. Gradually she and her family were able to look beyond his crime to the person he had become. Despite a hardening of attitudes generally towards offenders in the USA and other parts of the western world, Letters to a Lifer shows why the campaign against LWOP sentences for juveniles is nonetheless gaining momentum.

Since its implementation in 2003, the Youth Criminal Justice Act has been the subject of intense political and scholarly debate. A complicated mixture of provisions intended to provide harsher punishments for serious violent crimes while encouraging positive, non-punitive interventions in less serious cases, its impact on the youth justice system remains controversial. Implementing and Working with the Youth Criminal Justice Act across Canada provides the first comprehensive, province-by-province analysis of how each Canadian jurisdiction has implemented the Act in accordance with its own history, traditions, and institutional arrangements. Drawing on in-depth interviews with probation officers, counselors, educators, and social workers, the contributors use the experiences of practitioners to offer a new analytical perspective on a complicated and contentious aspect of the Canadian justice system. Their conclusions provide vital policy and program information for researchers, practitioners, and policy makers concerned with Canada's youth justice systems.

This handbook promotes a comprehensive strategy founded on evidence-based programming for juvenile justice systems to adopt or enhance their current system. The comprehensive strategy is supported strongly by the broad research base that is now available. This strategy recognizes, first, that a relatively small proportion of the juveniles who initially enter the juvenile justice system will prove to be serious, violent, or chronic offenders, but that group accounts for a large proportion of the overall amount of delinquency. An important component of a comprehensive evidence-based juvenile justice system, therefore, is distinguishing these offenders from others and focusing attention and resources on that smaller group. Second, a comprehensive strategy recognizes that serious, violent, or chronic delinquency emerges along developmental pathways that progress from less to more serious profiles of offending. Priority must be given to interrupting these offender careers by calibrating the level of supervision and control of the juveniles' behavior to their level of risk. The third major component of a comprehensive strategy, therefore, is effective intervention programs that are capable of reducing the recidivism of those juveniles at risk for further delinquency. The Comprehensive Strategy for Serious, Violent, and Chronic Juvenile Offenders is an administrative framework that supports a continuum of services that parallel the development of offender careers. This framework emphasizes evidence-based programming specifically on recidivism reduction, and supports protocols for developing comprehensive treatment plans that match effective services with offender treatment needs along the life-course of delinquent careers, as they move from intake onward, to probation, community programs, confinement, and reentry. Juvenile justice systems will benefit from incorporation of a comprehensive strategy as provided in the handbook.

Youth Justice in America, Second Edition engages students in an exciting, informed discussion of the U.S. juvenile justice system and fills a pressing need to make legal issues personally meaningful to young people. Written in a straightforward style, the book addresses tough, important issues that directly affect today's youth, including the rights of accused juveniles, search and seizure, self-incrimination and confession, right to appeal, and the death penalty for juveniles. Focusing on cases that relate to the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Eighth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, the subject matter comes alive through a wide variety of in-book learning aids.

While scholarship on the education of youth behind bars has largely focused on boys, more than one in three youth arrests in the USA is female, and Girls Behind Bars sets out to address this imbalance. The book offers autobiographies, life-stories, and counter-stories in order to challenge simplistic generalizations and empirical prescriptions. Girls Behind Bars provides the educational community with critical perspectives that examine empiricist epistemologies and positivist methodologies that label certain groups of girls as delinquent and mark them for punitive and corrective treatment behind bars. Sharma opens up the discussion on girls' gender, desire, and sexuality by offering a language for these issues absent in educational discourse. Finally, the book supports calls for educators and practitioners in their desire to envision and create transformative spaces that enable young girls behind bars to reclaim their education. Including a foreword by William Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, this important and powerful book gives voice to a neglected, silenced, and misrepresented population - young girls behind bars.

Environment and Society relates to a diverse audience and encompasses viewpoints from a variety of natural and social science approaches. This integrative book about human-environment relations connects many issues about human societies, ecological systems, and environments with data and perspectives from different fields of study. Its viewpoint is primarily sociological and it is designed for courses in Environmental Sociology and Environmental Issues, or taught in departments of Sociology, Environmental Studies, Anthropology, Political Science, and Human Geography.

In recent years there has been significant media hype and moral panic over assaults and violent crimes perpetrated by young women. The governmental response to control crime and to provide protection to citizens has taken various, often contradictory, forms. The current research agenda on controlling youth violence in Canada, especially in light of provisions in the Youth Criminal Justice Act, is focused on risk assessment. The approach, however, ignores how "risk" is a socio-cultural phenomenon. Through interviews with young female offenders and youth justice authorities, Governing Girls examines female youth violence in the contemporary landscape of control and the increasing reliance on risk assessment tools to classify and manage youths' level of risk. Exploring the meaning of treatment and rehabilitation in the age of risk, as well as analyzing the gender, race and class dimensions of the risk construct, Christie L. Barron questions the impact of risk rationality and argues that actuarial technologies depoliticize the process of control and further exclude and marginalize young female offenders.

At a time when problems of crime and antisocial behaviour stimulate debate on big society solutions, this book provides an exceptional means of tracing a line of response which began at the end of the 18th century. Nipping Crime in the Bud explores the origins and development of the Philanthropic Society (and its influence on contemporary institutions) amid growing alarm about crime levels, Draconian sentences under England's Bloody Code and a paucity of effective crime prevention measures. Driven by Enlightenment zeal and ideals, this was the first voluntary sector charity devoted to 'nipping crime in the bud'. It did so through education, training, accommodation, mentoring and support for young people. Uniquely, the book traces the first hard won policy networks and partnerships between government and the voluntary sector. It reveals how-sometimes against the odds, with funding on a knife edge but constantly striving for effective answers-influential philanthropists rose to the challenge and changed approaches to young people involved in crime and delinquency, traces of which endure today within the great crime prevention charities which still rally to this cause. Muriel Whitten's book draws on previously neglected archival sources and other first-hand research to create a formidable and illuminating account about what, for many people, will be a missing chapter in English social and legal history. Review 'Describes in colourful detail the background to the founding of the Society and how its founders and their successors worked. It explains how their plans were put into practice, how they governed and how they acquired support. It skilfully deals with questions that are still asked today such as to what extent are children to be held responsible for wrongdoing? ... Dr Whitten is admirably suited to write such a book ... and] her knowledge and experience are distilled in this comprehensive and well-written book': John Hostettler, legal historian. Read the full review Author Dr. Muriel Whitten has been a youth and family court magistrate and a member of West Sussex Probation Committee. She has lectured widely on criminal justice matters at Goldsmith's and Birkbeck (University of London), the University of Ulster and has presented for CENTREX (now the National Policing Improvement Agency). She has also contributed a weekly column to the Belfast News Letter.

Nowadays, an alarming number of juveniles all over the world find themselves implicated in the juvenile justice system and a great number of them are incarcerated in detention centres or even in jails for adults. The mean age of these youth has lowered dangerously, the percentage of delinquent females has increased dramatically, and the number of minority juveniles within this population has become unjustifiably high. The majority of these young people has diagnosable mental disorders, including substance abuse, learning disorders, ADHD, conduct disorder, anxiety and mood disorders, at rates much higher than in general same-age population. Very often, multiple diagnoses are applicable. Over the last years, experts from medicine, psychology, law, and sociology have been engaged in a number of evidence-based research studies, in order to study the relationship between juvenile delinquency and psychopathology. This research interest has resulted in a proliferation of studies mainly conducted at the U.S., with European countries following this activity. The objective of this book is to provide a comprehensive description of what is currently known in this area, with an emphasis on knowledge informed by empirical research. This way, it is aimed at providing a basis for the elaboration of an integrative perspective of psychopathology in juvenile delinquents and for the elucidation of the complex relationship between mental health disorders and juvenile delinquency. A developmental psychopathology approach is used as this is the area of expertise of the authors, especially regarding assessment, diagnosis and treatment of disruptive behaviour disorders.

Gang activity and related violence threaten public order in a diverse range of communities in the United States today. Congress has long recognised that this problem affects a number of issues of federal concern, and federal legislation has been introduced in the 110th Congress to address some aspects of the issue. Youth gangs have been an endemic feature of American urban life. They are well attested as early as the 18th century and have been a recurrent subject of concern since then. Contemporary views of the problem have been formed against the background of a significant adverse secular trend in gang activity during the last four decades. In particular, the rapid growth of gang membership, geographical dispersion, and criminal involvement during the violent crime epidemic; associated with the emergence of the crack cocaine market during the mid-1980s to the early 1990s; have intensified current concerns. The experience of those years continues to mark both patterns of gang activity and public policy responses toward them. Policy development and implementation in this area are be-devilled by discrepant uses of the term "gang" and the absence of uniform standards of statistical reporting. There are reasons for special care in the use of data on gangs and their activity. Without a standardised definition of what is meant by "gang", such as the age group or activities engaged in by its members, or standardised reporting among the state, local, tribal, and federal levels of government, it is difficult to target anti-gang initiatives and evaluate their effectiveness. According to a national gang survey, the most recent estimate indicates that there were about 760,000 gang members in 24,000 gangs in the United States in 2004. This book provides background information on the issue of youth gangs, including data on gangs and gang crime. It reviews existing anti-gang initiatives at the federal, state, and local levels, and describes some of the legislation proposed during the 110th Congress to address the gang problem, as well as some of the issues raised by those bills.

Gang activity and related violence threaten public order in a diverse range of communities in the United States today. Contemporary views of the problem have been formed against the background of a significant adverse secular trend in gang activity during the last four decades. In particular, the rapid growth of gang membership, geographical dispersion, and criminal involvement during the violent crime epidemic -- associated with the emergence of the crack cocaine market during the mid-1980s to the early 1990s -- have intensified current concerns. The experience of those years continues to mark both patterns of gang activity and public policy responses toward them. This book provides background information on the issue of youth gangs, including data on gangs and gang crime. It reviews existing anti-gang initiatives at the federal, state, and local levels, and describes some of the legislation proposed to address the gang problem, as well as some of the issues raised by those bills.

The Second Edition of Preventing and Reducing Juvenile Delinquency: A Comprehensive Framework aims to inform students about the latest research and the most promising and effective programs and provides a wealth of information for understanding, preventing and controlling juvenile delinquency. Key Features Examines the history of current juvenile justice system policies and practices, including the juvenile violence "epidemic" Discusses key myths about juvenile violence and the ability of the juvenile justice system to handle modern-day juvenile delinquents Applies developmental theories of juvenile delinquency to understanding how juvenile offender careers evolve Reviews effective prevention and rehabilitation programs and what does not work Presents a comprehensive framework for building a continuum of effective programs

Intended Audience: This is an ideal supplementary text for undergraduate and graduate courses in juvenile delinquency, juvenile justice, and violent offender intervention courses. It is also essential reading for juvenile justice and social services research and development specialists.

This book presents a detailed and comprehensive critical analysis of evidence on adolescent research from leading international scholars. It explores the prevalence, nature, and trend of juvenile delinquency among Koreans as well as various western countries. It provides information on the socio-cultural contexts related to juvenile delinquency, aggression and violent behaviour among adolescents, substance abuse and delinquency, intra-familial child abuse in South Korea and other western countries. The authors also suggest these problems as a major social issue and present these issues in Korea and its cross-cultural comparison. This book is an ideal textbook for those who wish to explore the nature, trend, prevalence of juvenile delinquency and its cross-cultural comparison.

When is it appropriate to punish a child in the same way as we do an adult criminal? Using cases from his own court in Manhattan, the author amply demonstrates that the current punitive policies fail to steer children away from crime and that both society and the child benefit from a more individualized approach.

The image of the violent, anti-social gangster is part of the American landscape, often romanticised and glamorised by popular culture. Gang activity in the United States has been traced to the early 19th century when youth gangs emerged from some immigrant populations. Now, as then, gangs provide identity and social relationships for some young people who feel marginalised by the dominant social, economic and cultural environments in which they live. Gangs, however, are not simply a "street family" to some of the nation's disenfranchised. As distinguished by the U.S. Department of Justice, "a group must be involved in a pattern of criminal acts to be considered a youth gang." Between 1980 and 1996, the U.S. experienced significant growth in youth gangs, when the number of cities and jurisdictions that reported gang problems rose from 2863 to approximately 4,800 From 1996 through 1998 the growth seemed to slow down, but according to the 1999 National Youth Gang Survey, the number of gang members is again on the rise.

The first in-depth study of the political, social, and cultural history of juvenile delinquency in modern Japan, "Bad Youth" treats the policing of urban youth as a crucial site for the development of new state structures and new forms of social power. Focusing on the years of rapid industrialization and imperialist expansion (1895 to 1945), David R. Ambaras challenges widely held conceptions of a Japan that did not, until recently, experience delinquency and related youth problems. He vividly reconstructs numerous individual life stories in the worlds of home, school, work, and the streets, and he relates the changes that took place during this time of social transformation to the broader processes of capitalist development, nation-state formation, and imperialism.

Juvenile justice policies have historically been built on a foundation of myths and misconceptions. Fear of young, drug-addled superpredators, concerns about immigrants and gangs, claims of gender biases, and race hostilities have influenced the public's views and, consequently, the evolution of juvenile justice. These myths have repeatedly confused the process of rational policy development for the juvenile justice system. Juvenile Justice: Redeeming Our Children debunks myths about juvenile justice in order to achieve an ideal system that would protect vulnerable children and help build safer communities. Author Barry Krisberg assembles broad and up-to-date research, statistical data, and theories on the U.S. juvenile justice system to encourage effective responses to youth crime. This text gives a historical context to the ongoing quest for the juvenile justice ideal and examines how the current system of laws, policies, and practices came into place. Juvenile Justice reviews the best research-based knowledge on what works and what does not work in the current system. The book also examines failed juvenile justice policies and applies high standards of scientific evidence to seek new resolutions. This text helps students embrace the value of redemptive justice and serves as a springboard for the current generation to implement sounder social policies. Juvenile Justice is an ideal textbook for undergraduate and graduate students studying juvenile justice in Criminology, Criminal Justice, and Sociology. The book is also an excellent supplemental text for juvenile delinquency courses. About the Author Barry Krisberg, PhD has been President of the National Council on Crime and Delinquency (NCCD) since 1983. Dr. Krisberg received both his master's degree in Criminology and his doctorate in Sociology from the University of Pennsylvania. He is currently Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Hawaii and has held previous faculty positions at the University of California at Berkeley and the University of Minnesota. Dr. Krisberg was appointed by the legislature to serve on the California Blue Ribbon Commission on Inmate Population Management. He has several books and articles to his credit, is known nationally for his research and expertise on juvenile justice issues, and is called upon as a resource for professionals and the media.